Chorus [1974]

 Mrinal Sen’s radical and electrifying Calcutta Trilogy – Interview, Calcutta 71 and Padatik – received an absurdist epilogue with Chorus, which continued the trilogy’s political ferocity, sardonic mood and dazzling formal adventurousness. However, with the brutal crushing of the Naxalite revolution, this marked an end to this thrilling four-film cycle for the firebrand leftist intellectual, as he decided to pivot to more restrained palettes. Blending Third Cinema’s revolutionary manifesto with bold stylistic experimentation and proto-cyberpunk elements, and training a pungent lens towards cultural hegemony and religiosity, Sen constructed a dystopian world where the state apparatus operates for corporate interests, and how this order – maintained through manipulation and violence – starts crumbling as soon as the proletarian forces rise up in furious rebellion. The film’s subversive stance was evident from the get-go when a “Brechtian bard” (Rabi Ghosh) sarcastically reveals, through parodic ballads, the hypocrisy of organized religion. He keeps reappearing in the anti-narrative dealing with the escalating consequences of a sham job opening, at a powerful organization, that draws 30,000 applicants. When their disingenuousness becomes apparent, the swelling anger spirals into a massive resistance, and that makes the company’s conniving chairman (Utpal Dutt) – afraid of the dissent unleashed by the voiceless masses – resort to ever-increasing draconian measures through the police that’s servile to power. In parallel, we witness the personal stories of a few applicants desperately looking for jobs – an impoverished farmer’s son whose uncle is a slimy money-lender; a guy whose father is a disillusioned trade unionist; a helpless young woman – and a detached journalist doggedly following the unravelling story. Energetically shot by K.K. Mahajan and filled with polemical political songs, this anarchist gem hits its viewers with a Marxist sledgehammer.

p.s. This is a revisit. My earlier review of the film can be found here.

Director: Mrinal Sen

Genre: Black Comedy/Political Satire/Fantasy/Experimental Film

Language: Bengali

Country: India